Hi Mike, My view is that when the goal is to generate parsers and unparsers from fixed format binary data DFDL schemas, compile them to native machine code, and execute the machine code on CPUs, Daffodil should generate Rust. We would have preferred Rust when we started the C code generator work. Rust is memory safe, type safe, etc. – but it was not available for our phase 1 target CPU.
Creating a Rust backend makes sense, although we don’t think there is a Rust to hardware path – at least none that we are aware of. What did you mean by the phrase “basis for generating VHDL or System Verilog?” John From: Mike Beckerle <mbecke...@apache.org> Sent: Thursday, January 11, 2024 5:13 AM To: John Interrante <jinterra...@apache.org> Cc: dev@daffodil.apache.org Subject: EXT: Rust vs. C backend John, What's your view of generating Rust vs. Generating C from DFDL? Those of us working in Cyberia, well, the edict has been issued that only memory-safe languages/runtimes are allowed to reduce risk of cyber-attacks via things like libc flaws. Seems to me that Rust is the lowest level language that would be acceptable I believe ultimately, the goal is to generate a useful software implementation that does not compromise on performance, and to be a basis for generating VHDL or System Verilog. I imagine you've given this some thought you can share. Mike Beckerle Apache Daffodil PMC | daffodil.apache.org<http://daffodil.apache.org/> OGF DFDL Workgroup Co-Chair | www.ogf.org/ogf/doku.php/standards/dfdl/dfdl<http://www.ogf.org/ogf/doku.php/standards/dfdl/dfdl> Owl Cyber Defense | www.owlcyberdefense.com<http://www.owlcyberdefense.com/>
